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Top Rank promoter Bob Arum is once again considering matching up 140lb titlist Terence Crawford with his cash cow Manny Pacquiao next spring. Arum tells RingTV that is Pacquiao beats Jessie Vargas next month, and if Crawford wins his next fight (expected in December), he can see the two going head-to-head in April.
“If Manny wins the fight and funny enough with Crawford going again in December, it’s possible to do an April fight if Manny and Crawford are successful,” Arum said in a phone interview. “Crawford against Manny — that’s a possibility. That would be a great match.”
Crawford has already been on the table for the Pacquiao fight scheduled for Nov. 5, but Pacquiao opted to take on Jessie Vargas instead. In this video interview with FightHub, Pacquiao’s trainer Freddie Roach gave some insight into that decision.
Anyway, it looks like Crawford is back in play for Pacquiao’s next fight, but Arum says he isn’t limiting his options to just in-house fighters. Arum references the fact that he was previously in discussions with Al Haymon to stage a Pacquiao fight with Adrien Broner, which ultimately fell through due to Broner’s high asking price, and that Haymon has a number of fighters he would be interesting in matching against Pac-Man.
“I talked to Haymon before I made the Vargas fight about Adrien Broner, who he couldn’t control,” Arum said. “But he has some other welterweights — (Danny) Garcia could be a good opponent. (Keith) Thurman could be a good opponent. I mean, there’s no more boundaries now for Showtime fighters and HBO fighters. As far as I’m concerned, we’re having a great experience doing our own pay-per-view and there’s no real reason for premium networks to get involved in pay-per-view.”
The last quip is a clear reference to HBO declining to pick up the Pacquiao-Vargas PPV as the Nov. 5th fight date was too close to HBO’s previously scheduled Sergey Kovalev-Andre Ward PPV on Nov. 19. Arum wasn’t too fond of that decision, and has since accused HBO of abandoning Pacquiao while questioning the need for premium networks involvement in PPV’s at all.
So let’s just get an informal discussion going just for the sake of it...Assuming everybody from 140-147 is on the table for a Pacquiao fight, who would you most like to see him in against?